ATA Conference Boston - Review of Sessions II

This is the second part of my session summaries from the recent ATA conference. You can read Part I on sessions dealing with technical translations/terminology here.

• "The Entrepreneurial Linguist: Lessons from Business School"
• "Translating Digital Media: Marketing 2.0"

"The Entrepreneurial Linguist: Lessons from Business School" by Judy Jenner

Ms. Jenner emphasized that even a one-person translation business run out of one's home is a business that must be run professionally. This includes maintaining a well-designed website, a website-specific e-mail address, a separate business telephone number and marketing materials that advertise the value one's translation services add to a client's business instead of a resume that looks like a job application. Since networking and a personal connection are important in obtaining business, a professional photo of the translator is important on the website and other marketing materials. As sellers we set the price of our services; that price should include a minimum charge, as well as annual adjustments for inflation and surcharges for working on weekends and holidays, Ms. Jenner said.

"Translating Digital Media: Marketing 2.0" by Jon Ritzdorf

Mr. Ritzdorf spoke about translators who can market themselves to direct clients in ways that go beyond traditional translation and interpreting services. He focused on three areas: video subtitling, mobile applications and search engine marketing. Translating subtitles for marketing videos may require first timing and transcribing the original text and adjusting the translated text to fit the timing of the original video. The interface for mobile applications not only needs to be translated, but the application itself also must be tested in the target market. Translators here can act as in-country experts who ensure that the application functions as intended in the context of the local infrastructure and can communicate any problems in the language of the application's producer. Keywords used in search engine marketing not only must be translated, but also adapted for the target market, since customers in different markets may not search for the same terms, even in translation. As a user of local search engines, the translator again can act as the in-country reviewer/tester who can also communicate in the client's language.

These are just some of the sessions I attended. I may implement tips from a presentation on using speech-to-text software (specifically, Dragon Naturally Speaking) later (and blog about it).

One of the nice things about language-related conferences is that not all presentations are in English. This gave me a chance to attend lectures presented in German, as well as Spanish, which exposed me to current German business language and honed my Spanish comprehension skills in a dialect I was unfamiliar with (Argentinian, it turns out).

ATA Conference Boston - Review of Sessions I

German-English translator Annette Cyrkel took this photo at one of the networking breakfasts at the recent ATA conference in Boston and graciously let me use it. Here are my summaries of three sessions on technical translations/terminology. I'll review two more sessions on the business/marketing end of our profession next week.

• "A Dilemma for Language Service Providers and Translators: Subject Matter Expertise and Internet Style"
• "Technical Writing for Into-English Translators"
• "Search-fu! Finding Terminology on the Internet"

"A Dilemma for Language Service Providers and Translators: Subject Matter Expertise and Internet Style" by Manisha Mittal

Ms. Mittal works for Language Scientific, a translation agency specializing in technical and scientific documents. She explained how her agency analyzes incoming projects and matches translators, subject matter experts and editors with a specific project. Unlike more generalized language services providers, Language Scientific requests fairly detailed information from its end clients. This includes target audience, specific speciality within a subject, type of text, in-house style guides and glossaries. It then assembles a team of translators, editors and proofreaders, at least some of whom are also subject-matter experts in the given sub-speciality. The agency is looking for additional freelancers.

"Technical Writing for Into-English Translators" by Karen M. Tkaczyk

Ms. Tkaczyk defined technical writing as text that conveys informaton accurately, explains technical ideas and is focused on the user. For a technical writer a romantic poem simply becomes "John loves Jane." She then provided a number of specific tips for editing your translation into better technical writing, such as:

• write concisely; if necessary, divide long sentences into multiple shorter ones
• reorder thoughts to make them logically coherent or to present events in the correct order
• turn nouns into strong, active verbs

Translators should pick a specific style guide to follow whenever a client doesn't specify a particular style guide, Ms. Tkaczyk suggested. The presentation concluded with a list of common stylistic errors, such as spacing between units of measure. An extensive list of resources was provided in a handout.

"Search-fu! Finding Terminology on the Internet" by Alex Lane

Mr. Lane focused on the ways in which Google searches can be customized to return the specific results a translator might need. One of the most useful, I think, is the fact that a search query can contain words in more than one language. Google will interpret the languages concerned and return bilingual texts that fit the query. Other ways to find terms include exploiting a site's URL structure to find the same document in a different language (e.g., if a search returns www.example.com/English/document1.html, replace "English" with "German" to see document1 in German) and restricting searches to specific sites or sites with a specific country code. Mr. Lane recommended keeping track of the searches performed, in case terminology choices are questioned later.

ATA Conference - German-English Translation in the Renewables Sector

I arrived in Boston yesterday for a pre-conference seminar about German-English translation in the renewables sector. The conference in question is the 52nd annual conference of the American Translators Association. The seminar was a workshop led by Craig Morris, who, in addition to translating materials about this subject also gives presentations to energy industry executives and others. Before the seminar, he had e-mailed attendees a homework of sorts: a few texts to be translated in advance of the session.

We started by trying to translate a fourth text, a short interview about some of the policies in Germany that are designed to encourage development in the renewable energy industry. As a matter of fact, the texts we had been given in advance were also geared more toward the policy side, rather than the technical end of "alternative energy". In the course of discussing these translations, Mr. Morris provided some technical background, visualized in helpful diagrams.

Next was a short presentation on where and how to research terminology related to renewable energy. Mr. Morris particularly emphasized Wikipedia as a helpful tool. I also use parallel Wikipedia entries in German and English to research other technical terms. While Wikipedia can be unreliable on some topics, most of the basic technology and science articles seem to be quite well written by people who have a thorough understanding of the topic at hand.

After a brief break, the seminar concluded by going over the translations we had been asked to prepare in advance. All in all, I learned a number of useful facts about the technology involved, as well as German and U.S. policy regarding renewable energy. This being a translation conference, the focus on policy documents was probably warranted, but being the geek I am now I want to attend a session on renewable energy technology. Maybe I can find something back in New York...

More Conferences to Attend - Why?

Here I am, barely back from the International Translators Federation congress in San Francisco, and I just registered for my next conference. This time I'll be going to Boston for the American Translators Association conference.

Is all this jet-setting really worth it? Well, for one, I'm not exactly jet-setting. I try to find the cheapest way to get there (in the case of Boston that is a $15 or so ticket from a discount bus company), then find a cheap hotel that's accessible by public transportation. In Boston, this proved to be harder than it had been for other conferences, but I finally did find something cheaper than half a double room at the conference hotel. Telling from Google maps, it's even within walking distance of the conference - although a little bit of a hike. The conference fee itself is fixed, but I always register early enough to get the early-bird discount.

Despite the economizing, though, I do spend quite a bit of money on these trips. While I have only gotten work as a direct results of two conferences, establishing contacts with potential referrers and/or clients does seem useful to me. In addition, conferences do provide much more in-depth information on current trends and issues in the profession than magazines and online articles do.

Then again, maybe I'm just rationalizing these trips. I really like to travel and going to conferences gives me an excuse to do so. I always try to make room for at least a little exploration of the city in which I'm staying, even if that means staying up rather late or hauling my luggage with me while sightseeing just before the bus/plane back to New York.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on a. cheap accommodations in Boston (the reservation I made can still be cancelled) and/or b. things to see there on a Sunday (the conference ends late Saturday, so I'm staying over until Sunday).

Are Conferences Worth the Price?

In the past, I've attended conferences organized by professional organizations, such as the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and the American Translators Association (ATA), the online community ProZ.com, the German technical communications organization tekom and a Portuguese translation agency, Tradulinguas. Only one of these, the regional ProZ conference in Vienna in late 2009, directly led to actual translation jobs. On the other hand, I met a number of people at these events and eventually signed up with new agencies whose representatives I met at the conference.

With many conferences becoming ever pricier and the fact that I also have to cover airfare and lodging myself -- not to mention the time it takes away from potential translation assignments -- I have to carefully evaluate the potential benefits of attending out-of-town events. I decided against this year's STC conference because of its fairly steep admissions fee, but I kept vacillating about the conference hosted by the International Federation of Translators. It's only held every three years and this year it's in the U.S. -- in California, but that's still a lot cheaper for me than flying to, say, Shanghai. After looking at the conference program, I initially decided that there weren't enough sessions relating to my particular interests and specialization to be worth the money I'd have to spend.

But on Monday I did, in fact, register for the conference and book a flight and hotel, as well. The conference program hasn't really changed, but conferences are not just about the lectures, but also about meeting other attendees, presenters and exhibitors. I already received two responses to last week's post about a potential bilingual ghostwriters' network, so I reasoned that it would be helpful to meet other translators from around the world. And what better way to do that than at an international translation conference?

So I'll be out of the office (although possibly posting to this blog) from July 31 through August 5. I also plan to attend the ATA conference in Boston in late October, so that will be another 4 days or so not accepting translation jobs. And then there is my actual vacation, from July 9-16 in Harrisburg and York, PA; Baltimore, MD; and Washington, DC. Let's hope all these "out-of-office experiences" won't dent my workload (and income) for the year too much ...